A new report from the U.S. Department of education examines enrollments at private K-12 schools in the United States.
In the fall of 2019, there were 30,492 private elementary and secondary schools with 4,652,904 students and 481,200 full-time-equivalent teachers in the United States. About two thirds of these schools had a religious affiliation.
Of the more than 4.6 million students enrolled in private schools, 9.4 percent were Black or African American. Blacks made up 8.3 percent of private schools affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church and were 11.2 percent of the students in private schools affiliated with conservative Christian denominations.
Blacks were 8.9 percent of the students in elementary private schools and 9.5 percent of the students in private high schools.
Blacks made up a greater percentage of students in smaller private schools. For example, Blacks were more than 12 percent of all students in private schools with less than 50 students but they make up only 7.3 percent of the students in private schools with more than 750 students.
Blacks were only 4.6 percent of the students in private schools in the West but were 12.4 percent of private school students in the southern United States.
African Americans were 11 percent of all students in private schools in urban areas but only 5 percent of all students in rural private schools.
The report – Characteristics of Private Schools in the United States: Results From the 2019–20 Private School Universe Survey – may be downloaded here.
